Zerodigriz of Self
by macDhai
Summary: A different sort of DK seeks to find himself in the lands of the blood elves. A story of the Silvermoon Guard, sharing some of the characters, but on a diveregent storyline from my Rogue Magick series.
1. Audience

**Zerodigriz of Self, a Story of the Silvermoon Guard**

by Rillan macDhai

I've recently started playing WoW on the Moon Guard roleplaying server. This story is background for my Death Knight and will also contain some background history (though rapidly becaming an alternate prequel) on the firesworn warmage of my Rogue Magick stories. Zero is mentioned in Rogue Magick, but hasn't put in an appearance there yet. PG for now, since I'm not sure what will happen on Zero's journey, it will probably eventually be K+ or M for the sites ratings.

* * *

"Thank you for the audience, Milady."

The Forsaken Death Knight remained kneeling. He was well aware of the Banshee Queen's short temper and impatience with delay, so despite his misgivings, he continued. "I ask for leave to return to Silvermoon."

Sylvanas growled low, "You waste my time asking this? There are no restrictions on where the Forsaken may travel."

The former rogue, once elven, once simply Forsaken, and then one of the rare Forsaken Death Knights, kept his eyes on the stone of the floor, though his voice remained easily heard, "You misheard the emphasis on the words, Milady, and I could have put it more bluntly. I ask leave to –return- to the quel'dorei. I want to go home and stay."

He heard the ranger queen hiss an unnecessary breath. After a long moment of silence, Sylvanas said, "You will not find acceptance there, Slippery diGriz."

The death knight raised his head and arched his emaciated, skeletal body until his back was perfectly straight again. "I do not go there to find their acceptance. I go there to find my own. And to recover some of what I lost."

He remained sitting on his legs, but his gaze now fixed on Sylvanas. "You led the way, Ranger-General. I but seek to emulate what you have done."

The Banshee Queen stared back at him.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she asked dangerously, her bow suddenly in her hands.

The former elf smiled. "You reclaimed yourself," he said simply.

Sylvanas studied him for another long moment before reslinging her bow. "Continue," she said.

"At the moment, I remember Thalassian if I see it written, but I can't un-jumble it if I heard it or try to speak it. I want that back . . . and I want to be myself again. Or at least look like myself." He suddenly grinned and for a moment a hint of the rogue he had been shone through. "Besides, the rest of the brotherhood are getting all the girls."

Sylvanas gave him an affronted look and moved toward him in anger before stopping herself. "You never had the sense to be afraid, Zerollen Silverice."

"Never," the other cheerily agreed. "But please, Ranger-General, save that name for when and if I redeem myself. My working name of Zerodigriz Darkice is more suitable until then."

He shifted gracefully, kneeling now in the manner of a knight seeking a boon. "May I be released from your service, my Queen, so that I might journey home?"

Sylvanas studied her former scout. He still wore the armor he had gained among the Scourge, but there was calmness about him few Death Knights ever achieved, that and a spark of the Light almost suitable for a priest or paladin. If he ever realized his potential, he would be formidable indeed. She would have had him stay, before. Before the rebellion in her own city. Before Varimathras and Putress. Besides, she recognized a kindred spirit, one who would never be willing to live under the shackles of another.

"I release you from your service to the Forsaken, Sir Darkice," she said. "You may return to your own land. If you succeed, I would ask one thing of you?"

"Nearly anything, my Queen," agreed the knight.

She frowned at his impertinence, but Slippery ZerodiGriz had never taken authority seriously when he'd served as a scout. It was somehow heartening to see he had retained that part of himself as well; perhaps he would have the strength of will to reshape his undead body or at least create the illusion he had done so.

"If you regain your form, return here that I might see you."

Electric ice blue eyes met her red gaze and a remarkably relaxed and happy smile brightened. "Nothing would please me more, my Queen."

"Arise then, and walk free, Sir Knight."

"Thank you, Milady. Suffer well."

Again, she gave him one of her piercing stares, but it was clear he meant no mockery by his words. "Suffer well, indeed, Sir Knight."

He bowed deeply.

Spinning lightly about he started out of the audience chamber, before suddenly pausing and patting his head with a slender bony hand. Looking back he asked, "Your pardon, Milday, but … do you see my ears laying about anywhere?"

Sylvanas ducked her head, hiding a laugh. "Your hood, sir death knight."

Zero pulled his battle hood from his belt. Sure enough, distinctively pointed elf ears were sewn to the fabric where the quel'dorei sometimes made holes to let a hood fit without crushing their own. "Thank you, Milady."

The fallen elf slipped the hood on and settled it into place. Saluting off-handedly, he headed out of the chamber, the words of a bawdy drinking song drifting back into the room as he began to sing in an amazingly pleasant voice for a death knight.


	2. Accosted

**Accosted**

The surface level of Undercity or rather, the ruins of Lordaeron were mostly home to the vendors and traders of the Horde and goblin factions who supplied the Forsaken with interesting, useful or necessary items and services they could not create for themselves. Even with the persistent fogs that cloaked the old capital and most of Tirisfal Glades, Zero preferred the old city. There were green things growing in the cracks and grass in the courtyard, even small bushes had sprouted here and there. It was a pale memory of the city, but it was alive. And in general, even the Forsaken warlocks and death knights who might have blighted the growth either treated it with respect or avoided the areas where it was heaviest. And the herbalists, suppliers to alchemists, inscriptionists, and addicts, were actually tending some areas as herbal gardens.

One of the people the former rogue had met while wandering the ruins was a small Pandaren monk. Over a number of mugs of ale, the tiny mystic had wheedled Zero's story out of him and offered some advice that once the hangover had worn off actually seemed helpful. Eventually, it had led to Zero's decision to seek leave to return to Quel'thalas. Not that he'd really needed it, but once Zero had been a scout of Quel'thalas and served with Sylvanas Windrunner. And fallen with her. And found himself again fighting in her service during the rebellion when Arthas and the Lich King had been concentrating on beating Illidan to the Frozen Throne.

He'd helped smuggle messages between Undercity and Silvermoon; those delicate negotiations too dangerous and damning to trust to magicks, the ones that had helped bring the remnants of the quel'dorei, those who now called themselves sin'dorei – blood elves – into the Horde. And he had served in Northrend, a scout and spy among the orcs of Warsong Hold. He'd been a shadow, silent death on the edges of the Scourge forces until he'd had the misfortune to meet with Sliver, one of the Lich King's chosen. Perhaps Sliver had once been a rogue himself - his use name suggested it – but for reasons of his own or some machinations of Arthas, he'd carried the twice dead Zero back to Archaerus and turned his body over to the necromancers. And Slippery Zerodigriz had served the Scourge once again.

After the blood rain and the Light Manifest through Tirion Fordring and the Ashbringer, after facing his own ghosts and finding hope and freedom once again, Zero had wandered the length of the continents before returning to Lordaeron. But the forests and magick of his homeland pulled at him through troubled dreams until he found he could no longer pretend he belonged among the mostly human stock of the Forsaken or even in the brotherhood of the Ebon Blade, though those had his deepest alliance. He wanted, simply, to find himself again. The pandaran who called himself Tuck had helped him give form and name to his thoughts, but it was no doubt Eversong and the towers of Silvermoon would have eventually drawn him north again. Sylvanas' recovery of her body or her illusion of it and the subsequence embodiment of the dark rangers who had also been banshees had given him a goal.

He was going home. Whether his people wanted him there didn't matter, this was purely for himself. He had served the quel'dorei. If he would serve anyone again, he would do it by his own choice, but his heart said he was needed at home. That _he_ needed to be home.

_Home_, the word sang in his blood and bones. If he were to come to terms with what had happened to him, if he was to regain himself, it would be in Quel'thalas or what remained of it. And Tuck had agreed to come and help him keep his balance among the living.

Humming softly, he headed out the one outer gate that had been left unsealed in the Old City and into the woods outside when Tuck liked to go to mediate and do his katas. The monk had been teaching Zero his unarmed fighting style and the death knight had found it had both practical and spiritual uses. The day was bright for Tirisfal Glades and Zero stripped off his hood and gloves, tucking them into his belt as he picked his way through the bushes and undergrowth, watchful for plaguehounds or day-flying bats, but not overly concerned about them.

_Darkice? Sir Zerodigriz Darkice?_ The voice in his head was clear, but not one he was used to hearing. Despite the suggestion of questions, the speaker seemed all but certain of his identity.

_What do you want, San'layn Prince?_ he growled back through the mental link the other had established.

A projection of a tall elf - almost naked in loose robes, hair a mix of white and dark red or black locks, eyes the color of blood - appeared before him. Taldaram of the San'layn, one of the dark fallen vampiric elf lords, shook his head impatiently and the hair fully darkened and brightened to a deep rich auburn. Tilting his head at the death knight, he smiled tightly, a hint of longer than usual fangs showing against his lower lip. _I'd like to ask a service of you as well as offer you a challenge. You will be well compensated, if you accept. _

_I've no interest in serving to you or any of the Scourge ever again. I serve only myself and perhaps the Ebon Blade, as –I- chose_, Zero hissed across their link, his eyes narrowing and actually seeming to steam in the warm air. _You should well know that, _uncousin_. I've walked free since Light's Hope._

_But I'm not asking you to serve the Scourge or anyone connected with it_, the Darkfallen Prince countered.

Zero blinked. There had to be a trap somewhere here. Still he asked aloud, "Then what?"

_There is a warmage rumored to now be residing in Silvermoon. I would hire you to act as his bodyguard. Find him. Keep him safe from the Scourge, from the One who destroyed the Sunwell, and any of His cultist agents. Keep him _alive.

Zero blinked again. This was not what he'd expected. _And I expect you want me to agree to some binding to this service?_ he asked across the link.

_Nothing more than can be bought with gold_, the Darkfallen elf lord said. _Your loyalty he can win or not on his own._ Taldaram held up a sizable sack of something, presumably money. _A year's payment, at the rates for a noble's bodyguard. Do you accept?_

With a 'clink' the bag suddenly appeared, real and solid by Zero's feet, the death knight checked it reflexively as he would have anything suddenly materializing next to him. It –appeared- safe and he opened it just enough to confirm the gold was real and remained so all the way to the bottom of the bag.

_Satisfactory?_ the projection asked.

_It will do. For now_, Zero replied. _So, is there more to this challenge than what you've already stated? _

_Beyond what might normally come the way of an ambitious mage in our society, Sir Darkice, I also ask that you protect him from _– me.- _I trust that is challenge enough, even for you, Slippery Zerodigriz?_

Zero laughed and smiled and answered aloud once again. "Yes, Prince Taldaram. I believe that is challenge enough to make things interesting. I accept."

The San'layn laughed also and gave him a rapid description of the one he was to find. And the death knight picked up the bag of money, dumped it quickly into his saddlebags and dropped the empty sack to the ground. Starting to sing a bawdy marching tune he'd learned from the humans, he stepped through the projection and continued his search for the pandaran monk.


	3. Atonement

This occurs some time after Zero joined the Silvermoon Guard and began acting as the Firesworn Mage's bodyguard. This may be somewhat divergent from the storyline in the Rogue Magick series, but follows what has actually occured on the Moon Guard server more faithfully. This is just a short little vignette at more.

* * *

**Zerodigriz of Self: Atonement**

Started 3/17/11, rough draft finished 4/19/11

With a Guest Appearance by Korern Darkstorm, by permission of his player and writer

* * *

Bessariel banked and landed on the edge of the escarpment, crystal-appearing hooves clattering on the stones with a distinctly horse-like sound. Another horse creature, this one more recognizable as a death knight's charger, snorted, then wickered in greeting to the mare.

"I'm here, Korern," the winged horse's rider announced, swinging a boney leg over her back as he dismounted. He looked around for the charger's rider.

"Hello, Zerollan Shiningwaters," the charger's companion greeted him from a pile of boulders and sun-slivered logs, then was bent almost double as coughs wracked his emaciated body.

Zero paused in alarm. Korern Darkstorm, born Korern Brightstorm, had been strong, wide-shouldered and tall. The almost fragile creature before him projected anything but that image. Still, when it looked up, he could still see traces of the handsome elf the other had once been.

"What's happened to you, brother?" he asked. Undead even before he had been taken into the ranks, he was still horrified at the changes in his fellow knight.

" 'Hagrid has every disease ever know.' 'Put him in the room that explodes,' " Korern quoted an old Scourge joke regarding Naxxramas with an attempt at a smile. "I made the mistake of going in there. He shared some of them with me. Even death knights can catch plagues, it seems."

"But you could have mastered it, Korern. It's not too late; I can help you regain control." Zero took several steps closer, but the other waved him off.

"No. I don't want you to. I thought I would be immortal … but …." He fell into coughing again.

Zero danced in place, frustrated not to be able to comfort the other, but he recognized the choice Korern was making. "It's only the shell, brother. You'll feel better free of it perhaps." He smiled sadly. "Going to miss you though."

Korern looked up at that and smiled in return. "Not all spirits will be gone for good, but at least I'll be at peace."

"I hope so."

"I'll be with you in spirit. And also with Kilreth."

Kilreth was Korern's older brother, a true brother born of the same parents, not another of the Ebon Blade knights. In an odd turn of fate, it had been he who founded the guard company to which both knights belonged and both of them had been brought to join it by their involvement in one fashion or another with the firesworn mage who had also been Kilreth Brightstorm's student. Firesworn had made Korern head of the company when he left the Guard. Somewhere, Zero was convinced, the Weavers of Fate were making patterns beyond his understanding.

"That one," said Zero, speaking of Kilreth, "will need you watching over him. Rest well, you hear? And let me know if you have problems over there …." Zero's voice trailed away as he ran out of words, clenching and flexing his fingers in frustration at not knowing what to say.

"Take care of the Guard for me, Zero?"

The small undead blinked at that. "You're promoting me?"

"None better."

"Lots better. I'm a scout, not an officer. But I'll lead them until I find someone more suited to it. The fire mage has been talking about training with the Guard again, maybe I'll give him a surprise."

"That's all I can ask."

The coughing fit that swept over Korern this time almost took him off his feet, ice forming on the stones around him and frosting his still long hair until it sparkled white shaded into blue, and blue tinged all of the knight's visible skin. His power over frost was slipping from his control, trying to freeze the raging sickness within his body whether he wished it to or not.

"You want the body burned?"

Korern caught a breath and smiled weakly at Zero's question. "Please? Maybe I'll be warm again. Give my ashes to Kilreth."

"Of course I will. To ashes, brother."

"Suffer well, Zerollan, my brother in undeath." Korern's voice was fading, his eyes already looking elsewhere.

"Light guide you home, brother. Suffer well."

Korern dropped to his knees, driving his runeblade deep into the stone underfoot as ice thickened over his ruined body. "Goodbye for now," whispered across the air as the body continued to collapse beside the blade, ice crackling into small blue shards at the impact even as snow fell in a tiny storm around the knight.

The Forsaken seemed fond of saying they couldn't cry, but perhaps that wasn't true of death knights. "Only for now. I'll see you again someday," Zero said. He bowed his head, whispering the dimly remembered prayers for the dead he had learned in his childhood.

There was a sensation like a warm clasp of hands, a hint of Korern's smile in the snowfall. _When you walk in the Light or when you really need me, I'll be there._ The whisper, heard more in his head than with his battered, much abused ears, drew a soft sigh from the remaining knight. "And so passes a good man."

Bessariel gently bunted Zero's shoulder, seeking comfort herself. Korern's death charger had slipped away; unseen with his master's passing. Zero rubbed her jawline and ears, leaning against the warm solidity of her before he turned to the task of gathering wood for the pyre.


	4. Awareness: Bessariel

This is a flashback section for Zero and lifts more directly out of WoW's Death Knight starting zone quests than any other story I've posted so far. I generally steer clear using other people's work, but I've been stuck for so long on not only Zero's story, but my others as well I wanted to get something done to try to get moving again. - R. macDhai, 7/14/12

**Zerodigriz of Self: Awareness and Bessariel**

Instructor Razuvious paused. Baron Sliver and two Acherus Necromancers were speaking next to a pile of bodies due for re-animation. One lay at Sliver's feet, a tiny rotten corpse that, but for the ruined leather armor it wore, could have been mistaken for a child. A fallen Forsaken scout, no doubt. Still, something about it sparked the instructor's interest.

"That one," Razuvious said, gesturing at the Forsaken's once again inanimate corpse. The body was lifted by the necromantic powers of the group, hovering in midair while its spirit was captured and dragged back to inhabit it once again. Darkly arcane energies shimmered and flared and the body dropped to the ground, this time pulling itself to its hands and knees, shaking its head as it peered around.

Looking more at Sliver than at Razuvious or the necromancers, it asked in a voice surprisingly deep for its size, if rather rusty from disuse and re-animation, "Who… who are you?"

It blinked eyes filled with the blue of necromantic arcane fire, looking at itself now. "Who … What … am I?"

Razuvious shook his head in disgust. "This one has awoken too soon. It retains emotion and memory. Dispose of it."

One of the necromancers replied, "Yes, instructor," while the other began summoning a group of ghouls. "Rise, minions. Rise and feast upon the weak!"

Sliver frowned and stared hard at the failed initiate. "Wait, Razuvious," he said.

_"Zero, stand and fight or you will die here for the final time." _

The words shocked through the confused undead's mind like an animating jolt of lightning, like the arcane web which had once again bound him into his rotted remains. The world, which had seemed something unfocused and dreamlike, abruptly assumed clarity with the force of the somehow familiar other's final words, _"Fight them like you fought me."_

Four ghouls were converging on the initiate when he suddenly blurred into motion, wicked clawed hands flashing into a ghoul's chest cavity with a daggerlike blow and tearing out the remnants of its heart. Breaking off a floating rib, the undead rogue spun and drove the bone into the eye socket of another ghoul. Claws raked the leather and cloth covering his arms, but the initiate seemed to draw strength from the pain and lashed out with a boney foot, driving the knee of another ghoul backward with a loud snap. The creature lost its balance and fell, tripping the third. Zero moved backward, stomping the throat of one of the downed ghouls with a crunch of vertebrae as he tore the rib bone back out of the ghoul he had stabbed. That one stumbled around in a circle, clutching at its face before launching itself back at him, arms swinging in a wild flurry of blows that drove the smaller undead back until an opening let him strike again; this time his improvised bone dagger went up through the ghoul's throat and lodged in the creature's skull. Zero abandoned the weapon, turning just in time to be bowled over by the remaining mobile ghoul that had hop-lurched its way to him.

The pair fell in a snapping, clawing pile, ripping into each other like two starving dogs. Sliver lifted an elegant eyebrow at the startled looks on the faces of Razuvious and the necromancers when Zero was the one who came out on top, tearing chunks from the ghoul and wolfing them down with ferocious hunger, his own wounds closing slowly as he devoured the animating energy along with the rotten flesh.

The pain fell away and in its place was a growing strength. Zero looked up, focusing on the four still standing nearby. "I return to do my master's bidding."

If his gaze was focused more on Sliver than any of the others, Razuvious seemed to miss it. "Well, marvel at its tenacity and vigor. I believe a champion has been found after all!"

Turning to the pair of necromancers, he commanded, "Place upon it the trappings befitting a herald of Arthas."

Caught between fear of the surprisingly deadly new initiate and the habit of following Razuvious' orders, the female of pair replied, "Right away, instructor."

Zero growled a warning as the two living servants of the Lich King approached, but allowed them to herd him aside and clean and cloth him. He heard nothing more from the voice in his head and a certain measure of fogginess seemed to close on him once more, but he retained enough caution to avoid speaking of his confusion again. The armor the necromancers outfitted him in seemed oddly cumbersome, but since it didn't seem particularly heavy, he ignored it, being much more interested in the warm and perfumed scent of the female human in the pair. He wondered what she would taste like, then found himself wondering at the images that surfaced that didn't have anything to do with consuming the woman.

He followed the two humans back to Razuvious, where the tall knight instructor now appeared pleased with him. The orange haired death knight he had felt was familiar had vanished and he felt his confusion deepening as he looked around the battlefield. A strange purple-blue and green-yellow glow clashed with itself around the edges of what appeared to be an oval of blackness not far from where they stood.

"Listen, death knight," said Razuvious. "Listen for the voice of your master. He calls for you now. Go and be measured! Go, for your master awaits your arrival in Acherus."

There did seem to be something, a pull, a sense of knowing where he needed to go. "Death to all who oppose us," he told Razuvious almost absently as he walked toward the portal. Perhaps the orange haired knight would be somewhere beyond and he could get some explanations.

What lay beyond, however, was the dark citadel Acherus, the Ebon Hold. The tug of connection led him not to Baron Sliver, but to the Lich King himself. Standing on a balcony staring at Havenshire below them, the uncrowned king of Lordaeron seemed unaware of Zero's arrival. Certainly, he was uncaring and unconcerned by the flare of anger the death knight initiate felt at the sight of him.

"Your will is not your own."

Arthas' presence rolled over him, tumbling his spirit beneath what was cold and crushing in its grip. "An elf? One of Sylvanus' traitorous whelps? What was Razuvious thinking?"

The Lich King's mind forced his, still cloudy from his reanimation. The only thing Zero could maintain against it was his anger, but that seemed simply to amuse his master. Arthas drew the rake of his will through Zero's mind, scraping memories already scattered and battered as fallen leaves into a tumbled pile and set about planting his own purpose upon the cleared land. If Arthas hadn't been doing a mass induction into the ranks of his knights, things might have gone differently, but tormenting the battered elven spirit was only the distraction of a moment with so many to cast down and reshape.

"You who were Zerollen Shiningwaters, the highwayman Zero diGriz, are now Zerodegrees Darkice! You will be the hand of my vengeance among your kin."

Sent off on various missions, Zero would return again and again to Acherus for training, usually under the watchful eyes of Razuvious and the indirect protection of Sliver. Finally he was deemed worth sending to the razing of Havenshire. He survived the first few missions there and the dueling among his clutch of initiates. He vaguely missed Sliver's company, but nothing else seemed important enough to reach through the haze in which he existed, until his trainers deemed him ready for the next step in a death knight's advancement.

"Ha, there you are, Zerodegrees." Salanar the Horseman came stalking up to the small knight, breaking up the sparring session he'd been watching. "Prince Keleseth sent down word it's time you had a mount."

The information woke an interest in Zero he hadn't felt since he'd been retaken. Zevhra, whether they were the pedigreed Quel'dorei steeds, bred for countless generations in the elvenlands or the hornless "horses" of Lordaeron, had captured his imagination since his childhood and he'd been stealing rides almost before he could walk.

He felt a stirring of excitement as Salanar continued, "How fortuitous it is that the Crusade has a stable full of horses a mere stone's throw from this post. Though they guard it tenaciously, an enterprising young death knight could break through their defenses and take what is rightfully his!" The Horseman grinned within his helmet and Zero returned the grin, already starting to plan out his approach.

"Once you acquire a horse from the Havenshire stables, return to me and I will see what can be done about transforming it into a proper deathcharger." Salanar seemed to be following Zero's focus, as he added, "Remember, Darkice, it's only stealing if you're caught. Watch out for that deranged stable master, Kitrik!"

Those last were said to Zero's rapidly disappearing self as the one-time rogue ducked into the supply master's tent to bargain for a length of rope and a bridle. The bridle was not forthcoming, but Zero secured a coil of tough line and was soon heading down the hill toward the woods around Havenshire.

It was a relief to be away from the others, away for what was one of the few times he'd been off the leash since he'd been retaken. He could almost think about what had happened…. "KILL THEM ALL!" reverberated through his brain, perhaps through his helmet, completely side-railing whatever thought had almost occurred to him.

"I'm hunting for a horse for me, not murdering them," he muttered to the Other in his head. "Shut up, Arthas."

That usually did nothing to quiet the Lich King, who was probably just broadcasting random thoughts and not actually focused on anyone in the Scourge in particular, but this time the Voice did fall silent. The sensation that someone was watching him only grew, however. Faint and almost reverent, someone, surely not the Voice, whispered, "A _horse_…."

Ignoring the presence which may or may not have actually been there, Zero continued, slipping from tree to tree and then from bush to stump to bush, until he could see the paddock. Bays and chestnuts, the former distinguished from the latter by their black manes and tails and legs, made up the majority of Havenshire's herd with a peppering of greys and a few pintos. Most were heavy stock, bred for the plough or for carrying knights; little enough difference between them, in Zero's opinion, and a large part of what there was being in personality. Tiny as he was, even in full plate if and when he earned it, he could look to a hunter or a courier's mount and not overburden the beast.

He circled the paddock, noting guards and stable hands, the mounted Master Kitrik yelling orders to his men and murmuring sweet nothings to the mares and their foals. It was while he was evading a patrol of Scarlets that he finally spotted her. A black mare with a wide forehead and large dark eyes, she had looked up from the central feeding plot and stared directly at him, turning her head first one way and then the other as she studied the darker shadow in the shadow of the brush beyond the fence.

Unconcerned, she dropped her head, disappearing among the taller war mounts, but Zero was already out of his hiding spot and crouched by the fence. He slid under the rail, then stood, and calmly angled toward the mare, making his way from grazing gelding to dozing mares, working his way slowly toward the group near the center of the pasture. The trick was not to run and not to make direct eye contact with anyone, man or horse. The herd shifted a bit at his scent, but not unduly. He moved like someone familiar with horses and they accepted him as another of the herd, with only some suspicious mares with foals stomping a hoof at him. Kitrik might have spotted him as not belonging, but another death knight had chosen to make an attempt on a gelding near the fence and was currently acting as a distraction for most of the Scarlets around the pasture. One of the mares cocked a leg at him as he moved in among them, but he shoved her off balance and boxed her lightly - careful of his unnatural strength - on her nose when she threatened to bite him.

The horses shifted away from him, recognizing, if not the full measure of his strangeness, then knowing man and rope equaled going to work and seeking to avoid it. Still, he managed to edge through them and up to the black mare, looking steadily at her rump and not her head until he was scratching her withers with a hand almost at full extention. She was taller than he'd thought, clean legged and built to run. He slid a hand down her shoulder, down the leg and cupped it around the fetlock. She calmly accepted this and lifted the foot for inspection. He felt her tug on his armor as he slipped under her neck and checked the off forefoot as well, smoothing fingers through her heavy mane as he stood up again. She snorted and stamped, fidgeting as his smell finally got to her nostrils, but he had slipped the cord around her neck by then and was running a loop through her mouth and around her lower jaw, making a rope bridle. Grimmacing, he broke off several of his sharp toenails. Then, taking a good grip on her mane he got a quick, slippery foothold on the indentation just above her knee and leapt onto her back, folding low over her neck to avoid making an immediate target of himself and keeping his center of gravity close to her body.

She snorted, gathering herself, just as a voice called out, "What're you doing there?"

Zero touched her sides with his heels and clucked to her and with a half-rear, she was off, weaving through the herd with Kitrik not far behind them. Her mane snapped back, forcing Zero to squint as they tore across the pasture, the mare gaining speed with each stride. Stablehands and patrollers were running for the fence, but having already had one theft attempted, they were not yet recovered and still out of position as the mare neared the fence. Instead of leaping, the mare shied sideways, nearly leaving Zero in the dust as she pivoted and bolted down the fence line.

_If I fall off, I'm dead. Again_.

Painfully, Zero, half off the mare with only his hands in her mane and a leg hooked over her withers keeping him from an intimate meeting with ground and fenceposts, worked his way back onto her back. Legs now tight along her barrel and both hands deep in her mane, the end of the field and a cluster of soldiers coming up fast, "Up!" he told her, giving signals with the shift of his weight and grip of his legs. If she turned to follow the fence, they would surely be run down.

This time the mare gathered herself and launched over the fence, the men scattering before her charge, torn between striking at the obviously valuable animal and taking down the Scourge atop her. Kitrik was screaming somewhere behind them as she landed and continued her headlong rush. They were deep into the woods approaching the mine before Zero was able to unlock his fingers and gain some small measure of control of their flight with his cord bridle.

_Magnificent_, whispered the Voice in his head, sounding as pleased as if he had stolen the mare himself. "_What will you call her_?"

United with his unwanted master for a moment in appreciation of a fine horse, Zero answered, "Bessariel."


	5. Phoenix Fire

Zerodigriz of Self: Phoenix Fire

Theramore didn't have much in the way of pasture for its mounts, so the horses, along with goats and geese and a few other creatures were herded out for the day and back in at night. And that worked well until Garrosh decided to besiege the city and eradicate the Alliance presence on the eastern coast of Kalimdor.

Given warning, the geesegirls and goatboys had their charges within the walls well before the first orcs began infiltrating the grazing grounds. Likewise, the valuable war and work horses were rounded up and safely back in their stables. All but one contrary – and very pregnant – mare.

Now, mares can get secretive and unruly when their birthing time comes close. This one was no different, and though she'd been tethered on a line to prevent wandering, while the squires gathered the rest of the herd, she'd calmly gnawed through the braided hemp and sauntered off into the swamp, tail flicking at the larger pests her anti-bug talisman failed to drive away. Not a finger count of minutes later, the bell mare and her followers came trotting down the causeway with their attendant squires chivvying them along. The missing mare provoked a small panicked search, but it was short, consisting mostly of calling and rattling a grainbucket, to the great interest of the rest of the herd, but totally failing to recall the pregnant mare. Said bucket of oats was left behind in one of the thatched sun shelters and promises were made to come the next morning and conduct a more extensive search, but the older squires were already exchanging glances and wondering how much their stipends would be docked for losing the mare and her foal-to-be.

And that was how things stood, with skirmishers and snipers too plentiful the next morning, in the minds of the officers and chief herders, for the herd and the flocks to be let out again.

And that was how things stood when the death knight Zero diGriz and his death charger-turned-sparkle pony-turned-winged war mare Bessariel came flying over the Dustwallow Marsh, supposedly one of the many spies observing the defenders' preparations for Garrosh's army, but in reality gathering information for a more well-disposed toward Theramore, though much less numerous group. The Warders of Dawn's Promise had been quietly evacuating their non-combatants to their holdings in Outland and expanding their spy network ever since the Warchief's declaration. Zero, with his connections in Booty Bay and Rachet and his death knight ability to create portals and travel swiftly via his winged mare, was one of their spymasters. Theramore was inconvenient to reach, but Zero knew a fellow knight who now made her home in the city. There he'd had a safehouse of sorts until the siege was actually imminent and magickal wards and extra-observant patrols made entering the city impractical.

So Zero circled and observed, keeping high and wary of other scouts until darkness let him drift closer to count campfires and look for troops where fires were not. Once the battle had actually started he went skulking about the swamp, seeking opportunities to hinder the Horde's cause and release his anger and death knight hunger. He'd first died before the Quel'dorei had become Sin'dorei and he put the skills he'd learned hunting orcs in the first ravage of Eversong to good use.

He holed up for the day in a thicket of myrtle and greenbriar, Bessariel choosing to drift in and out of whatever realm she now wandered thanks to the Shat'tar's gift to her spirit. Zero was somewhere between the lines, closer to the Horde camps, playing dead and amusing himself by taking down an occasional shelter seeking orc when his companion came shoving through the bushes to roust him out. Cutting her out of a tangling wreath of greenbriar, he asked, "What's got you in a twist, my Black Bess?"

The mare responded by continuing to shove forward, pushing him out into a relatively open spot before kneeling in an unmistakable hint to shut up and get on her back. The cannonfire and mortars were at a lull and Zero could hear troops splashing and cursing around them in the swamp. Sighing, he slipped onto her back, expecting her to launch herself airborne once she rose, but instead she turned and went back the way she had come, Zero silently adding his curses to the complaints around them while dodging thorns and spiderwebs as she set out for some destination deeper into the mire.

Around them, the sounds of what could only be a full-scale retreat grew louder and Zero had the pleasure of dropping a Death and Decay on a heavily wounded squad before he and his altered death charger were among them, finishing the work the Alliance had started. Laughing softly and feeling better than he had since the bombardment of Theramore had begun, he patted her blood-spattered neck. "Was this what you brought me out for?" he asked.

Shaking her great head in what was either denial or to shoo the swamp pests from her ears, Bessariel returned to picking her way through the swamp. They had left most of the noise of battle behind them, splashing finally through the shallows of low tide to one of the hummocky islands in the bay.

A angry snort greeted them from the aforementioned very pregnant mare who then returned to her pacing, circling in a worn path around a small pool of brackish water. A halter and raveled braid of hemp were her only adornment. The missing mare from Theramore's herd had been found though Zero knew only the absurdly round horse was probably about to drop her foal and that it was a miracle none of the troops had made a meal of her yet.

Sliding a leg over Bessariel's back, he dropped down on the side away from the pacing mare and made his way to the highest spot on the gnome-sized isle, belly-crawling the last few feet to peek out at their surroundings from the cover of a surprisingly lush palmetto. Nothing stirred bayward, except for gulls and distantly a thresher's long neck and hump as it momentarily breached. Marsh-side there was drifting patches of smoke from the battle, a few suggestions of movement through the palmettos and moss-hung live oaks, and a double trio of orcs and trolls, not quite in a single group, coming toward them. The mare, not his, but the pregnant one, chose that moment to plant her legs, grunt and begin delivering her foal.

"Somewhere, the Gods are laughing," Zero told the two mares as the orcs trudged closer; the trolls, carrying netting bags of clams and crabs following the orcs at a more leisurely pace, the largest with a huge crocolisk tail slung across his shoulders. Even if Bessariel had left no traces of her passing, it was too much to expect the mortal mare hadn't, and even if she had, someone in the group was sure to catch the fresh blood scent on the air and come to see what caused it.

Sure enough, as they got closer, one of the trolls paused, head turning from side to side. He called something to the orcs who unlimbered their weapons and came at the hummock with spread out caution.

Zero lifted a hand slowly to touch Sorrowsong, slung across his back, and felt the runeblade's hilt nudge against his fingers like the bunting of a friendly cat.

One of the orcs crested onto the scene just as the birthing mare expelled the white sac of her foal onto the sandy loam, long wet legs already breaking through the bag with ridiculous little baby hooves. The orc blinked in surprise, barely registering Bessariel's presence, let alone noticing Zero motionless under the palmetto.

"Woo! Boys, throw away that fishy crap! I've found us good red meat for dinner!"

Six to one odds were a little daunting, especially since he had no quarrel with the Darkspear trolls. Acceptance would let him keep his cover as a good little member of the Horde and continue spying. But Zero'd always liked horses better than most people, and he wasn't going to allow the newborn to become a meal for orcs. "No," he said, rising to his feet and startling the orc into a defensive pose.

He walked toward it, dipping into a couch to snatch the birthing sac from the foal's nose as he passed. Then, breaking into a run, he hurled his hammer at the first orc, while racing toward the second to arrive. Bessariel spun on her haunches as he passed her and charged the third.

He stumbled, foot tangling on a root and crashed into the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of him, but at least that wasn't a consideration as he rolled, tugging Sorrowsong over his shoulder and using the momentum to help him regain his feet though he missed the startled orc by a good arm's length.

"Well, dere be somethin' different," said one of the Darkspear to his companions as the jockey-sized elf swung Sorrowsong, a blade almost as long as he was tall, at the orc's thigh, cutting a line of red right through the chain and leather supposedly protecting it.

"Da blood madness got 'em," said one of the other trolls, throwing out an arm to prevent his fellows from joining in as Zero popped over the hummock's crest and turned to strike again.

They looked at him sideways and began to grin. "Oh, ja. De blood madness be ah terrible thin', mon," said one. Reaching into a net bag, he pulled out an oyster and began to shuck it. "Five gold on da shorty elf ta take 'em all."

"Six 'e don' be comin' afta us once 's finished wit dem."

The orcs didn't have time to note their fellow soldiers' lack of support and Zero was too concerned with drawing them far enough from the mare to do more than be grateful they didn't seem to be readying spears or bows. Despite his battlename, he was more comfortable with the discipline of Unholy rather than Frost. Tiny as he was, he didn't attempt to deathgrip an orc, instead calling his hammer back to him while he swung Sorrowsong at knees and feet while he retreated to the water's edge. What frost he could command froze enough water behind him to let himself be pushed back to the shore before calling plague down on the orcs.

Loosing a death coil spell, he staggered the shorter of the two pursuing him, Sorrowsong greedily humming for blood as he deflected a hammer blow from the other and ducked between the two. With his own hammer he cracked an orcish knee sideways, dodging around the screaming, falling orc as its fellow brought down a wickedly notched axe that barely missed the elf. Pivoting, Zero brought Sorrowsong into the axe-weilder's exposed side. Cutting through chain and leather padding alike, the runeblade opened the orc as easily as the watching trolls' shucking knives opened clams.

A meaty green hand closed around one of Zero's ankles and yanked him roughly off his feet, the broken-kneed orc pulling the tiny elf closer and trying to return the favor with an armor-denting blow that cracked bone in the death knight's thigh. Zero brought Sorrowsong's hilt slamming into the orc's jaw, stunning him for a moment, allowing the knight to loose another death coil. Reversing the blade, he swung overhand, driving its length into the orc as it hammered him a second time and then compounded the annoyance by falling on him.

Making colorful assumptions about the orc's parentage, the small death knight squirmed out from under the dead weight, retrieving his blade and limping back through the water to the hummock after the remaining orc. The trolls slurped down clams and oysters and continued watching from a distance as he disappeared over the crest again.

Meanwhile, Bessariel had been making a good showing against the last of the three orcs, but the battle mare was bleeding from a number of small wounds and a wicked gash to her haunch while the orc had dented armor and one arm hanging useless. The orc was slowly wearing her down now, trying to draw her into a better position by making feints toward the foal and the semi-oblivious mother, alternating with dashes toward the fight on the shore. There was just enough heavy growth to keep the war mare from overbearing the orc, while Bessariel's non-mortal nature let her keep fighting after a living horse would have died or fled the fight.

But her hip wound was seriously impeding her movement and it was becoming inevitable the orc would eventually get in a fully crippling or killing blow. Indeed, just as Zero was finally free to aid her, the great black horse was lured into turning toward an attack on her weak side. The muscles in her hind leg failed and the orc rushed in with a triumphant cry, bringing her axe down at the mare's neck. A flailing forefoot caught the orc in a leg, spinning orc and strike enough to deflect it into the thick muscles closer toward the withers rather than into the spine behind the mare's head. Still, it crippled the mare terribly.

"Bessariel!" screamed Zero, who had been silent since his one warning 'no' at the fight's beginning. In his rage, he found the strength to yank the orc to him with his death grip, hit the orc with an necromantic fever and boiling the blood within its veins.

The orc screamed, "Lok'tar Ogar!" in return and swung a crushing blow at Zero's side, but the tiny knight jumped entirely over her swing and brought Sorrowsong slicing down. Cleaving the female to her breastbone, he had a moment's struggle to pull the blade free and turn to look for more assailants.

"I guess it's ogar," he told the mares or maybe the dead orcs as he strode up the tiny hill to glare at the trolls.  
The trolls eyed him back and moved into the cover of the swamp growth when he didn't immediately charge them. Faintly, he heard one of them demanding his six gold.

He went to Bessariel, doing what little he could to heal her, mostly cleaning dirt out of the wounds he could reach while her altered system slowly regenerated the damage. They wouldn't be going anywhere soon, unless Zero opened a death gate to Acherus.

The mortal mare left off cleaning her foal and came over to investigate the strangers. Her warm breath wuffled over Zero and Bessariel as she nosed them – Zero ready to dodge and protect his partner, Bessariel apparently unworried, whickering softly to the other horse. The mortal mare nickered back, the pair snuffling noses at one another before the living mare returned to her foal. The little one was starting to experiment with standing, long legs quivering and buckling as it shifted and squirmed. Zero, reassured, left off hovering over Bessariel and returned to his guard post on the lip of the hummock.

Nothing moved close by, except for the lapping of the waves and the aerobatics of the swamp's dragonflies. Then a faint hum-buzz-sputter-choke could be heard from somewhere above, a zeppelin chugging high overhead. Zero rolled over to watch it, frowning at the fantastically red gasbag with the huge and rather lopsided Horde symbol on it. "That's not Steamwheedle," he pointed out to the mares.

He watched it fight the air currents toward Theramore, frowning as he could see something tethered below the gondola. "What _is_ that? Can't be anything good…."

Zero's eyes widened as he finally recognized the design from notes he'd seen in Firesworn's workshop. "That's a mana bomb! Arthas' balls! What do they think they're doing?"

Being a death knight cuts off a certain level of emotion, fear being one relatively unwanted in a risen warrior, so Zero wasn't afraid as he grabbed his arcanocorder – the re-worked gnomecorder his fire-mage-and-tinkerer commander had equipped all his spies with - and thumbed the broadcast override, but he was concerned for any others of Dawn's Promise who might have been in the area, "Garrosh is dropping a mana bomb on Theramore. Evac! Now!"

Even as he spoke, he saw the ornate ball begin to drop, heard the whine of the zeppelin's engines as it tried to accelerate away, heard also the startled exclamation from whoever was doing 'corder duty back at the Safehold. A gateway to Acherus might save them… but the mortal mare and her filly would never survive the transition.

Zero wasn't sure exactly how a mana bomb worked; whether it overwhelmed an area with an excess of arcane energy or created a void to rip it all away. He knew it killed or altered every living creature it touched. And he knew he had no more intention of abandoning the living horses to however it did what it did than he had been in allowing the orcs to take them. He could turn magicks, create shields and even a small area that could deflect an incoming blast, but it was generally not able to withstand more than a single warmage or small group. Bessariel snorted and thrashed herself closer to her companion. Smiling fondly, he twined his fingers into her thick bloodstained mane

Then the blast claimed them, Zero's shield a moment of pink-purple shimmer turning quickly to the necromantic purple-blue-black of the energies death knights and some warlocks wielded to a defiant green-gold. And then the green deepened, deepened into blue, blue that intensified beyond any single color and everything was white.

888

Between worlds or planes of existence the apparent rules of time and space shift in ways mortals can only hypothesize or dream. Here travel spirits both greater and lesser, passing between or simply observing; so it was that Aessinia, recently incarnate greater spirit of the living world paused to examine this most recent affront to her sphere of influence. In so pausing, she noted the motes of her own being cast abruptly into this between place, some ascending brightly, others sinking into darkness, still others floating in what was not quite the Emerald Dream. In the Now of that place, which only the dragons of the Bronze Flight might have had some understanding of, Aessinia gathered those who were her children to herself, hugging them all tenderly as they chose their directions. Some she recognized as having aided in her coalescence and subsequent healing of the flame-ravaged mountain known as Hyjal and two of those still seemed most surprisingly focused on something still in the mortal world of Azeroth. Interest piqued, she drifted closer, noting the arrival in the same vicinity of one of the beings of Light shifting down to also observe. What passed between them, the how and why of what might seem capricious intervention or capricious reward took shape and form and passed into the world of ordered time and consequence.

888

"His last transmission came from somewhere very close to here," said the mage, ashy-brown hair slipping out of its tail and falling across his eyes. He rubbed angrily at the loose stands while continuing to study a small metallic box he clutched in one hand.

"At least he wasn't within the city," the rogue known as Nightfrost observed, looking across the bay at the still smoking ruins.

"I hate being talked about in the third person," said a somewhat familiar voice.

Firesworn flinched and Nightfrost shadowstepped, but the small elf in the very shiny plate and chain only leaned heavily on his runesword and smiled tiredly. "At least, I think it's me you're talking about? I do know you, don't I?"

It was Zero, but a Zero who practically glowed with arcane energy and confusion. "I don't quite know what happened," he continued, nodding toward Theramore's ruin, "but I remember I had friends in there. And that my eyes have never been green, whatever that means. Could you portal us somewhere close to Stormwind? I don't think it would be wise for me to stay anywhere I'm likely to run into Horde after this, I'd try to kill them all."

Having made that small speech, he collapsed in a manner decidedly non-death knightish.

"Us?" Firesworn asked Nightfrost, but that was before the leggy black-going-grey filly walked up and began nosing at Zero's body. And before they found the dessicated corpse of a mare that wasn't Bessariel along with three skeletons which from their shape and the weapons near them must have been orcs. Something had obviously happened on this ridiculously small pocket of an island, but neither of the survivors was able to explain what it had been.

888

Firesworn and Nightfrost took them – an unconscious, but breathing – Breathing! - Zero and the leggy filly with the wise, considering stare and manners of a much older horse – first to the Safehold and then as Zero had requested, to a small orchard on the coast of Westfall. Taking full advantage of the chaos and their spies' assorted connections, Zerollan Shiningwaters, blue eyed, apparently living, certainly arcane-infused quel'dorei, was supplied with those items most useful to a warrior and a herbalist, a generous stipend was arranged and he was then left to heal and relearn his skills before any attempts to wipe out the Horde or at least one very hated orc were made.

It was there at the orchard he was rejoined by an old friend, a wizened pandaren monk whose name he still pronounced as "Tuck." They had started Zero's journey together; the old Pandaren was interested to see where it would take them next.

With the dawn, the three began their journey to Stormwind.


End file.
